Song of the South and racism

[EinBebop]

To answer a question started in another thread... there are a few reasons that people take issue with Song of the South.

1) depiction of slaves -- the movie starts and ends with a bunch of happy, unsupervised slaves singing about how great their life is. "Sugercoating" is the word that is often used.

2) racial stereotypes -- the tar baby immediately comes to mind, but it's been sooooo many years since I've seen this movie that I can't recall too much else.

Song of the South was based on stories told to a young white boy by a slave. The recipient of the story went on to publish "Uncle Remus's" stories in several volumes which were fairly popular in the early part of the century. Walt Disney was one of the fans.

The last time Song of the South was released publicly in any form was in 1986, and cause a bit of an uproar. It's 50th anniversary was about five years ago, and passed by with barely a whisper from Disney.

It's still lives on in a sense at Disneyland's Splash Mountain -- many of the characters seen on that ride were from Song of the South.

[Dub]

Originally posted by EinBebop To answer a question started in another thread... there are a few reasons that people take issue with Song of the South.

1) depiction of slaves -- the movie starts and ends with a bunch of happy, unsupervised slaves singing about how great their life is. "Sugercoating" is the word that is often used.

And of course we all know that slavery is fun. After all everybody's doing it **rolls eyes**

2) racial stereotypes -- the tar baby immediately comes to mind, but it's been sooooo many years since I've seen this movie that I can't recall too much else.

The Tar Baby scene was ALWAYS the biggest bone of contentment from what I remember. its been SO LONG since I've seen it though. Dick moores (Gasoline Alley) did a comic adaption of it for Disney Comics and it was printed sometime in the 80's version of Walt Disney's Comics And Stories. Unfortunately thats been banned too from what I hear. I wish I had access to my old stack of Disney comics...

But as far as I knew it was the Tar Baby and something else, but I cant be too sure.

Song of the South was based on stories told to a young white boy by a slave. The recipient of the story went on to publish "Uncle Remus's" stories in several volumes which were fairly popular in the early part of the century. Walt Disney was one of the fans.

I saw this part in my History of 2D Animation class at school.

It splits between the live action scenes of the boy and the Brer Rabbit stories. Its actually a young black boy and I think a young black boy. the slaves go ballistic (exaggeration) when the boy goes missing. :P But it turns out he's with Uncle Remus listening to stories ^^

The last time Song of the South was released publicly in any form was in 1986, and cause a bit of an uproar. It's 50th anniversary was about five years ago, and passed by with barely a whisper from Disney.

Yup. I dont think they acknowledged it ANYWHERE

It's still lives on in a sense at Disneyland's Splash Mountain -- many of the characters seen on that ride were from Song of the South. [/B]

Any and all brer characters hail from SoTS - but you wont ever hear where they come from

Everytime I've went to Disney World I've always seen Brer Fox and Brer bear - but I NEVER see Brer Rabbit except on the Splash mountain logo. I dunno if they've changed that though

[Ikwig]

This is one of those things that tends to bug me a bit. Yes, Song of the South, the Uncle Remus Stories, and many other stories, cartoons and comics from the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries are SUPER UN-PC. But people tend to forget that they were written in a different era and you have to look at them in their historical context.

Why not use such stories and movies as a basis for cultural research? If you have kids, why not read them some Uncle Remus Stories or watch Song of the South (if you can even get a copy) with them and use that to start a discussion on the history of slavery or early 20th century social culture or something like that?

Just please don't start yelling about how horrible and evil these things are because the people who created them happened to live in a completely different culture from the one we live in today.

Okay, that's my opinion - if you disagree with me, that's okay.

[Joe Tully]

Originally posted by EinBebop
[B]To answer a question started in another thread... there are a few reasons that people take issue with Song of the South.

1) depiction of slaves -- the movie starts and ends with a bunch of happy, unsupervised slaves singing about how great their life is. "Sugercoating" is the word that is often used.

The thing that advocates of the film counter that point with is that the story does not take place during times of slavery, but a few years after the end of the Civil War, just like the stories. So those weren't actually slaves.

2) racial stereotypes -- the tar baby immediately comes to mind, but it's been sooooo many years since I've seen this movie that I can't recall too much else.

The example that comes to mind is the large "lips" on Brer Fox, and I think Brer Bear too.

[Mackenzie Rainelle]

I used to love the Brer Rabbit stories when I was little. I still got a book of 'em from the original movie buried in junk around here somewhere....o.o;;;

[Anthonynotes]

I recall seeing "Song of the South" years ago (as a kid in the early-to-mid 80's), but haven't seen it since. I think I recall seeing a very old VHS (or even Beta) copy of it at a small video store in my original hometown once (the copy dated from the early to mid 80's)....

-B.

[Sharklady]

> The thing that advocates of the film counter that point with is that the story does not take place during times of slavery, but a few years after the end of the Civil War, just like the stories. So those weren't actually slaves. <

That would make them sharecroppers. But the lives of sharecroppers weren't all that much easier than the lives of slaves- too often, they were worked *very* hard for abysmally low wages. So the charge of 'sugarcoating' is still valid, and no less a personage than Maya Angelou has leveled it (see the opening chapter of 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings', wherein she describes life in a sharecropper's camp.)

> racial stereotypes -- the tar baby immediately comes to mind... <

That's rather ironic, since the Tarbaby story is a variation on an actual African folktale. In the original, Anansi the spiderman (one of those likable-scoundrel characters found in every culture's folklores) uses a wooden statue smeared with pitch to entrap a wood-spirit.